Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Mystery Solved!

We thoroughly enjoyed reading all your responses and guesses yesterday to the unusual characteristic that our home has. Yup, we like to keep you guys on your toes around here!

In the end, though, it seems our realtor was right - it is quite unusual!

Although a few of you came pretty darn close to an actual guess of what this is, none of your guesses were completely correct.

So, what is it?

Some of you guessed correctly that the outside little ledges are a place for display, like photos, candles, etc...

And some of you also guessed that it opens...

And some of you came awfully close with vague "a place to store stuff" guesses.

But what is it, specifically?

It's a half-coat closet.

Which we're currently using to store a few extra seldom-used dishes (but we might put our coats in here at some point).

The half-coat closet is made out of nice (and in good condition) cedar wood, which was once widely believed to repel clothes moths (click here more info).

Why half of a closet?

Because behind/underneath the half coat closet is the stairwell to the basement, so there was only room for the top half of a full closet.

Random, huh? Our realtor was absolutely floored by this - said he'd never seen anything like it before. We think it's pretty darn cool and unusual, and is very useful to store clothing or other things in.

We've actually grown quite fond of it. Although I can't for the life of me figure out how to decorate the outside ledges when they swing open every time you want something in there! (especially with coats in the winter!)

Perhaps I'll invest in some tape.

So what do you guys think? Was your guess close? Have you ever seen anything like it? What would you store in there? How would you go about decorating it? Let's talk about the smallest coat closet -- ever.


  1. That's really interesting! I've never seen one of those in my life or heard of one. Decorating it would be tricky since it's always moving around. It seems like photos might work, but you would have to find a way to mount them so they wouldn't move. I'm excited to see what you do with... but if nothing else, it looks nice just being a nice clean white.

  2. That is so cool! It looked way more shallow in the photos. If nothing else, will be a great hiding spot for hide and seek. Cedar closets are great to have for storing woolens and winter coats.
    I'm stuck on displaying things if you need to open it up. Earthquake 'glue' to hold the things down. Or with your artist talents, paint some trompe l'oeil items on the background.


  3. That is really cool! I'd probably take the shelves off and attach a big piece of art (just attach it one side) and use the art as the handle. :)

  4. OH! I think I have seen those before... nice little storage area!

  5. So bizarre... but, I guess it's best that the builder tried to make some use out of the often vacant spaces around the stairs.

  6. That's a nice space! We have a pantry above our staircase. It doesn't have the shelf/doors though, just plain old doors. Ours is about 2 feet deep and 3 feet wide, so it stores almost all of our food.

  7. How the heck did I not think of that? It seems kind of obvious now (even though it is very rare). I think the outside display is strange considering the doors are meant to be opened. It seems like a great space that could have easily been lost above the stairwell!

  8. I'm glad you guys like it as much as we do. I love old things like this - it's so unusual and unique to the home and adds quite a bit of storage space. I still have to figure out a way to decorate it, though - if I want to go that route. But that's later. Right now we've got other things to focus on! :)

    Thanks for droppin in!



Related Posts with Thumbnails